The Ace Cafe opened in 1938 to accommodate traffic on the then-new North Circular. The cafe was open 24 hours a day and started to attract motorcyclists in the evening and at weekends.

The emergence of the teenager, an increase in traffic, and the British motorcycle industry at its peak made the Ace a success. Young people started to meet at the cafe to socialise and listen to rock’n’roll on juke boxes.

It became especially popular in the 1950s and 1960s with ’Rockers’.

It is a notable venue in motorcycle culture which originally operated from 1938 until 1969 when it closed.


The cafe closed in 1969 but reopened on the original site in 1997 as a cafe and entertainment venue.


Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence